O*NET® Products at Work

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration introduced the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) to the public in 1998. Since that time, its impact on workforce development, career counseling, educational programming and human resource activities has quickly expanded, both in the U.S. and around the world. O*NET Products at Work provides examples of the widespread use of O*NET OnLine, the O*NET database, the Toolkit for Business, and the O*NET Career Exploration Tools.

O*NET Users! Tell us how you're using O*NET products in your own projects. We'll consider your story for inclusion in the O*NET Products at Work directory. It's a great way to share your products or research with the millions of other O*NET users.

Sample Stories:

Career Readiness Certificate from Michigan’s West Coast WIRED Initiative

Michigan’s West Coast WIRED Initiative uses the Career Readiness Certificate, based on WorkKeys® and O*NET Job Zone information, as a means of linking worker readiness to jobs available in the local economy. WorkKeys, an online assessment linked to O*NET occupations, measures foundational skills of Reading for Information, Applied Mathematics, and Locating Information. It assigns a score and grants a Career Readiness Certificate. The certificate is then related to jobs available in the local economy. The Career Readiness Certificate is being used in several other states as a part of state, regional, and local workforce development initiatives, including North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Kentucky, and New Mexico. Many others are in the process of implementing a Career Readiness Certificate program.

The Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board in
Pennsylvania uses O*NET information in research and service delivery activities designed to support economic development efforts in the county. Using an industry clusters model, The Lancaster WIB cooperates closely with the economic development community. After the industry clusters are defined, the primary occupations are profiled and a Skills Map is developed. Information for all occupations and the various career ladders in the cluster are analyzed to identify common skills and attributes, as well as those unique to a particular occupation or career ladder. The resulting Skills Map is a helpful way to involve the educational community in addressing skills gaps, taking a systemic approach to the identification of industry’s skill needs. O*NET data are a key part of the Skills Map used to develop the profiles, providing extensive information about skills and knowledge requirements of occupations in each cluster.

TUcareers.com is researching and building an analytic based framework that is built on O*NET and which can enhance the decision support it provides. One of the main goals is the adoption of O*NET in an International and multi cultural context especially for use in emerging economies (like India) where minimal research exists in career and education related decision making.

Minnesota’s public career information website, www.ISEEK.org, used O*NET skills data to create a free online skills assessment tool. The tool allows users to rate themselves on all 35 O*NET skills, then view occupations that are a good match for their skills profile. The tool also includes a “skills matchup” feature, which lets users see where their own skills differ from the average skills of those working in the occupation.
The assessment works for novice career explorers and experienced workers alike.

Seattle Washington Public Schools used O*NET data in its Health and Human Services Pathway program. Career educators used O*NET occupational information to structure their work in reorganizing courses of study. For the occupations in their curriculum, they used the common language of O*NET data to support the content a course should include. Educators also considered crediting courses across Pathways. For example, they might have identified a Career and Technical Education course that also fulfilled a requirement in art, social studies, or English by looking for O*NET abilities, skills, and work contexts that are common across multiple Pathways.